Return North Carolina Farm Unjustly Seized Back To Black Farmer

We understand the entire process that Farmer Eddie Wise endured with Farm Services Agency was and continues to be highly problematic and a potential threat to small and Black farmers everywhere. We, the undersigned, thus demand:
1. Return Farmer Eddie Wise and Dorothy Wise’s farm to them immediately.
2. Halt all proceedings around the auctioning of their farm (scheduled for April of this year).
3. Conduct a FULL independent investigation to uncover how Mr. Wise’s case escalated so rapidly and so unjustly and investigate how Mr. Wise was forcibly removed.
4. Ensure that all measures are taken to protect small farmers so no other farmer will be treated as violently, inhumanely and unjustly as Mr. Wise.

We are very concerned what appears to be a glaring and very violent assault on small farmers, Black farmers, and the right to self-determination in this country, via the recent seizure of North Carolina Farmer Eddie Wise’s land. On Wednesday, January 20, 2016, around 7:30 a.m., at least fourteen (14) Federal Marshals in full military gear with full-scale military guns drawn, along with several county sheriff officers, descended on the 106 acre farm in Nash County, NC, and forcibly escorted Eddie Wise and his wife, who was still in bed and suffers from a debilitating medical condition, out of their home and off the land that they have owned for more than 20 years.

Reportedly, farmer Eddie Wise had been working on his loan with Farm Service Agency (FSA) until Farm Services Agent Paula F. Nicholls and Mike Huskie took over his case. Not soon after, Mr. Wise’s loan increased and sky rocketed to almost $60,000 more within only a month’s span of time, thus lending to an escalated foreclosure process and, the seizure of property and an incredible number of subsequent questions and outrage from people all across the country.

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h/t Robin S